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DISCUSSION GUIDE Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines PBS.ORG/INDEPENDENTLENS/WONDER-WOMEN Table of Contents 1 Using this Guide 2 From the Filmmaker 3 The Film 4 Background Information 5 Feminism — A Brief Review 6 How Are Women Doing? 6 Women, the Mass Media, and Popular Culture 7 Portrayal on the Small Screen 7 More Women Needed 8 Thinking More Deeply 9 Suggestions for Action 10-11 Resources 12 Credits national center for MEDIA ENGAGEMENT Using this Guide Community Cinema is a rare public forum: a space for people to gather who are connected by a love of stories, and a belief in their power to change the world. This discussion guide is designed as a tool to facilitate dialogue, and deepen understanding of the complex issues in the film Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines . It is also an invitation to not only sit back and enjoy the show — but to step up and take action. This guide is not meant to be a comprehensive primer on a given topic. Rather, it provides important context, and raises thought provoking questions to encourage viewers to think more deeply. We provide suggestions for areas to explore in panel discussions, in the classroom, in communities, and online. We also provide valuable resources, and connections to organizations on the ground that are fighting to make a difference. For information about the program, visit www.communitycinema.org DISCUSSION GUIDE // WONDER WOMEN! 1 From the Filmmaker Like most women and men of my generation, I grew up with Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman TV show. It was the late ‘70s, the show was already in the constant rotation of syndication, and there simply wasn’t anything else out there that captured my imagination as a little girl. I had friends who were Wonder Woman for Halloween year after year because there were so few options for girls as fantasy heroes. When I started telling people about this film, men and women had I loved the idea of looking at something as populist as comics to wildly different reactions. Most of the guys admitted that Wonder reveal our cultural obsessions — in particular, how women’s roles Woman was their first TV crush. Women reminisced about how have changed over time. The narratives of our most iconic super- they pretended to be her: twirling a rope to capture foes or spin- heroes, told and retold over decades, boldly outline our shifting ning to transform themselves into superheroes. values. That’s one story Wonder Women! tells, but to me, it’s not the most interesting one. I hope the film also conveys the unpre- Fast-forward some thirty years and I was reading a New York dictable ways those icons can shape and even transform us in Times article that introduced Gail Simone as (the comic book) return. For some it’s Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft, for others it’s Buffy Wonder Woman’s first female “ongoing writer” EVER. Here was the Vampire Slayer, but we all need those iconic heroines who tell this incredible feminist symbol who had always been stuck, like a us we have the power to slay our dragons and don’t have to wait lot of strong female characters, between being created by men around to be rescued. and being primarily consumed by boys. The story stayed with me, and I began looking into Wonder Woman’s origins. Her creator, William Moulton Marston, was a fascinating character who set out to create an empowering role model amid a lot of superviolent male heroes. Of course, he also had some interesting ideas about what a strong female hero should look like. But his creation has endured while so many others have been forgotten. Kristy Guevara-Flanagan Filmmaker DISCUSSION GUIDE // WONDER WOMEN! 2 The Film Comic books have been a staple of American popular culture An array of experts appears in the film, extolling the virtues of since the 1920s, but their popularity soared when the adven- Wonder Woman and emphasizing the importance of female role tures of superheroes began filling their pages in the late 1930s. models in the mass media. From feminist leader Gloria Steinem to For a population coming out of the Great Depression, comic- fourth grader Katie Pineda, the message is that we need super- book superheroes provided a much-needed boost to the spirits. heroines in our lives. The enduring appeal of Wonder Woman Overwhelmingly, these action heroes were men — until 1941, rests on what she symbolizes — strength, love, truth, a sense of when a female superhero arrived on the scene and captured the fairness and justice, and an unending quest for harmony among imagination like no others before her. She was Wonder Woman, human beings. and Wonder Women! tells the story of her creation and her enduring popularity as a role model and feminist icon. Selected Individuals Featured in Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston, a Danny Fingeroth — Author, Superman on the Couch: What Harvard-educated lawyer and psychologist. Marston was a strong Superheroes Really Tell Us about Ourselves and Our Society supporter of the early 20th-century movements for women’s rights. He felt that women were the key to world peace and that Mike Madrid — Author, The Supergirls : Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, fostering feminine values of harmony and strength through love and the History of Comic Book Heroines would set humanity on the right path. In addition to showing that Gloria Steinem — Feminist; Journalist there was an alternative to the physical violence of male super- heroes, Marston’s Wonder Woman served as propaganda for a Jennifer Stuller — Author, Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic system of female rule. Warriors: Superwomen in Modern Mythology Wonder Woman was a patriotic symbol during World War II as Trina Robbins — Author, The Great Women Superheroes women entered the workforce to take the place of men, but once L. S. Kim — Associate professor of Film and Digital Media, UC the men returned after the war, she morphed into a more docile, Santa Cruz traditional female. Over the next several decades, the comic-book character of Wonder Woman mirrored the changes in women’s Dr. Kathleen Noble — Psychologist; Author roles and status in American society. The feminist movement of Lynda Carter — Actress, Wonder Woman the 1960s, looking for a figure that embodied strong womanhood, returned to the original depiction of Wonder Woman, who burst Lindsay Wagner — Actress, The Bionic Woman onto the cover of the first issue of Ms. magazine. In the wake Judith “Jack” Halberstam — Professor; Author, Female Masculinity of the popularity of the 1970s Wonder Woman TV show, other superheroines appeared, both on TV and in movies. The portrayal Dr. Katy Gilpatric — Sociologist of women in the mass media underwent numerous changes, from Kathleen Hanna — Lead singer, Bikini Kill; Co-founder, muscular, gun-toting, male-like characters to softer, self-sacrificing Riot Grrrl zine individuals, reflecting not just societal attitudes toward women but also the demographics of mass-media production, where 97 Jane Espenson — TV writer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer percent of the decision-making positions are held by men. Jehmu Greene — Former president, Women’s Media Center (Find more information on featured individuals at wonderwomendoc.com) DISCUSSION GUIDE // WONDER WOMEN! 3 Background Information The Need for Superheroes… Superheroes figure prominently in our national culture. They “star” The Man Who Created Wonder Woman in a variety of media — print, TV, film, video games — and the size of Three things inspired William Moulton Marston (1893-1947) audiences for superhero movies is just one measure of their wide- to create a female superhero: his studies of emotions and spread popularity. The attractiveness of these larger-than-life figures behavior, his own interest in and support of women’s rights, is not a modern phenomenon. Human history is filled with heroic and his wife Elizabeth. Marston, who had three Harvard tales, from the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, to the Norse degrees — a BA, a law degree, and a Ph.D. in psychology — legends, to the tall tales of the American West. was the inventor of the lie detector, a device based on the Why are we so drawn to these characters? What is their appeal? changes in a person’s blood pressure while being ques- On one level, they provide role models who exemplify “good” behav- tioned. During the 1920s he taught at American University ior, showing us the right thing to do. When they use their superhu- and Tufts University, among other places; conducted man powers to conquer wrongdoers, we can glimpse the possibility research; and developed his DISC theory, which centers of overcoming “evildoers” in our own lives. On another level, stories around four different personality traits: dominance, induce- of heroes and superheroes help us understand what often seems ment, submission, and compliance. Marston applied this to be a chaotic world. Ancient peoples created myths to explain theory when he consulted with Universal Studios in 1930 to the causes of both natural and man-made events, to impose a kind help them with the transition from silent pictures to movies of clarity on an otherwise mysterious world. By drawing clear lines with sound. A fan of popular culture, he described the educa- between good and evil, superheroes strive to maintain an ideal soci- tional potential of the comics in an article published in Family ety, where good is rewarded and evil is rooted out. Through their Circle magazine in 1940. This caught the eye of comic-book selfless actions they champion the moral and the ethical, showing publisher Max Gaines, who hired Marston as an educational us that we too can follow their path to creating a better world, and consultant for the two companies that would later merge to in this way, they give us hope.